Best Lara Croft build in Dead by Daylight – 3 builds using her unique perks

✓ At a glance

• Lara Croft brings three personal unique perks for the Survivors: Finesse, Hardened, and Specialist.
• The best build to make the Killer chase you with the help of vaulting uses: Finesse, Window of Opportunity, Lithe, and Resilience.
• The best build to repair generators quickly by collecting Tokens from chests uses: Specialist, Deja Vu, Plunderer’s Instinct, and Appraisal.

Lara Croft was unleashed and is ready to raid the nightmarish landscapes of Dead by Daylight with her own character DLC. Lara has brought three unique Survivor perks into the mix. Her abilities cover a diverse range of gameplay situations that don’t necessarily synergise with each other, but we think there are ways to utilise them for potent builds. To do that, we’ll have to mix some of the older perks with the new ones, allowing Lara to fulfil a couple of different roles in a team of Survivors.

What are Lara Croft’s perks in DBD?

Lara Croft brings three personal perks into the game. If you want to use them on other Survivors, as always, you’ll need to Prestige her Bloodweb a few times. Her perks are focused on her tomb raiding and adventuring experiences, which cover a few aspects of Dead by Daylight gameplay.

Finesse

• Whenever you are healthy, Finesse activates: Increases your Vaulting speed for a Fast Vault by +20%. Finesse has a cooldown of 40/35/30 seconds after performing a Fast Vault.

This means that you have to keep Lara Croft in a healthy state to be able to use this perk. When it’s used, her vaulting speed gets a large speed increase that will allow you to dodge Killer’s swings in situations when you would’ve been hit otherwise. Be wary of the cooldown on this perk, especially when your role is to make the Killer chase you. The higher rarities of this perk will help tremendously in that case.

Hardened

• After unlocking a Chest and either blessing or cleansing a Totem, Hardened activates: Suppresses the urge to scream from any cause and instead causes the Aura of the Killer to be revealed to you for 3/4/5 seconds.

This perk may seem pretty lacklustre compared to some others but can allow Lara to act as a scout for the team by hunting chests to activate the perk. Besides, she won’t scream while the perk is active, instead revealing the Killer’s position that you can then communicate to your team.

Specialist

• Whenever you unlock or rummage through a Chest, Specialist gains +1 Token, up to a maximum of 6 Tokens: Succeeding a Great Repair Skill Check while repairing a Generator consumes all Tokens.
• Permanently reduces the Repair Charges requirement of that Generator by 2/3/4 Charges per Token, up to a maximum of 12/18/24 Charges.

While it may seem that Specialist can synergize with Hardened, we would argue that it fits better with a Generator repair build. With the help of a few other perks, this perk can make Lara a monstrously fast Generator repairwoman. Remember, each Token will permanently lower the requirement on a Generator, which means that you can return to it and continue repairs in case you were chased away previously. But you have to succeed at a Great Repair check first, so there’s a bit of a risk involved.

Best builds for Lara Croft perks

Finesse build: take the Killer on a vaulting wild goose chase

This build revolves around being able to distract the Killer and make them chase you to buy time for your team to repair the Generators and open the exit gate. You’ll leverage vaulting and pallets to confuse the Killer, rather than trying to outrun them. However, you will be up close and personal with them and will need nerves of steel so that they don’t give up. 

Perk	Effect	Source
Finesse	Whenever you are healthy, Finesse activates: Increases your Vaulting speed for a Fast Vault by +20%. Finesse has a cooldown of 40/35/30 seconds after performing a Fast Vault.	Lara Croft
Windows of Opportunity	The Auras of Breakable Walls, Pallets, and Windows are revealed to you within 24/28/32 meters.	Kate Denson
Lithe	Performing a Rushed Vault triggers Lithe: Grants a +50% Haste status effect for 3 seconds. Lithe causes the Exhausted status effect for 60/50/40 seconds. Lithe cannot be used when Exhausted.	Feng Min
Resilience	Increases your Action speeds in Repairing, Healing, Sabotaging, Unhooking, Vaulting, Cleansing, Blessing, Opening, and Unlocking by 3/6/9% when in the Injured state.	All

While playing this build, it’s crucial that you try to avoid damage and stay out of the Injured state to make use of Finesse. However, in case you do get hit, we have contingencies. First, that’s why we picked Resilience, to allow you a bit of extra oomph to escape. 

After that, try to bring a good Med-Kit as your item. This unlocks the self-heal ability, which allows you to be self-sufficient and not have to bring the Killer to other Survivors. The best possible scenario is to have the Anti-hemorrhagic Syringe add-on applied to the Med-Kit. This will let you heal while on the move over the next 16 seconds

✓ Pro tip

If you feel like you’re lacking speed with this build, you can replace Resilience with Meg’s Sprint Burst.

Hardened build: Lara is not a scream-queen

Admittedly, finding a good use for the Hardened perk wasn’t easy. It fails to work in most usual roles within the game and can be at best described as utility. Still, we managed to create a fun build that won’t be competitive but can be a lot of fun if you want to try it in a casual match.

Perk	Effect	Source
Hardened	After unlocking a Chest and either blessing or cleansing a Totem, Hardened activates: Suppresses the urge to scream from any cause and instead causes the Aura of the Killer to be revealed to you for 3/4/5 seconds.	Lara Croft
Scene Partner	Whenever you are inside the Terror Radius, Scene Partner activates: Looking at the Killer causes you to scream, which reveals their Aura for 3/4/5 seconds. There is a chance of 50% that you will scream again, extending the Aura-reveal duration by another 2 seconds. Scene Partner has a cooldown of 60 seconds.	Nicolas Cage
Dramaturgy	Whenever you are Healthy, Dramaturgy activates: While running, press the Active Ability button to run with knees high for 0.5 seconds to gain a +25 % Haste status effect for 2 seconds, followed by one of the following effects: Suffer from the Exposed status effect for 12 seconds. Extend the duration of the Haste status effect for another 2 seconds. Scream, but without notifying the Killer. Receive a random Item of Rare rarity, with a random selection of Add-ons attached to it, automatically dropping any previously held Item. The same effect cannot happen twice in a row. Dramaturgy causes the Exhausted status effect for 60/50/40 seconds. Dramaturgy cannot be used when Exhausted.	Nicolas Cage
Bardic Inspiration	Press the Active Ability button while standing and motionless to enter the Performance interaction that lasts up to 15 seconds and empowers other Survivors within 16 metres of your location. The empowering effect depends on the result of you rolling a d20 and lasts for 90 seconds after completing the Performance: 1: You scream, but without notifying the Killer. 2-10: Skill Checks grant +1% Progression. 11-19: Skill Checks grant +2% Progression. 20: Skill Checks grant +3% Progression. Bardic Inspiration has a cooldown of 110/100/90 seconds after completing the Performance or cancelling it.	Aestri Yazar

To complete the scream-resistant scout role with this build, you should bring a Map as your item of choice. Ideally, look for the Crystal Bead add-on, which will share your tracked Auras with all other Survivors. We had a lot of fun with this build, but it’s nowhere near a competitive one.

✓ pro tip

Bardic Inspiration can be seen as filler perk for this build. You can opt for any other alternative, such as any Boon perk that lets you bless a Totem to activate Hardened.

Specialist build: looting chests for the fastest generator repair

This build is all about raiding chests and repairing generators as fast as possible. There’s a caveat – you have to do it by yourself, otherwise getting help from others will actually slow you down. Ideally, your team will have a dedicated chaser who’s going to lure the Killer away, but even if you don’t have one, the speed of this build’s repairs should see you through.

Perk	Effect	Source
Specialist	Whenever you unlock or rummage through a Chest, Specialist gains +1 Token, up to a maximum of 6 Tokens: Succeeding a Great Repair Skill Check while repairing a Generator consumes all Tokens. Permanently reduces the Repair Charges requirement of that Generator by 2/3/4 Charges per Token, up to a maximum of 12/18/24 Charges.	Lara Croft
Deja Vu	The Auras of the 3 Generators that are currently in closest proximity to one another, are revealed to you at all times. Increases your Repair speed on those Generators by 4/5/6%. If you are holding a Map, all Generators revealed by Deja Vu are automatically added to it.	All
Plunderer’s Instinct	Unlocks potential in your Aura-reading ability and improves your Luck when finding Items in Chests: The Auras of the following objects are revealed to you within 16/24/32 metres: Closed Chests located in the environment. Items sitting inside opened Chests. Items dropped in the environment. Increases the odds of finding Items of higher Rarities in Chests slightly/moderately/considerably.	All
Appraisal	Start the Trial with 3 Tokens: When a Chest has already been opened, consume 1 Token to rummage through it for an Item. Rummage through Chests 40/60/80% faster. Rummaging is only available once per Chest.	Elodie Rakoto

The crux of this build revolves around using chests to get as many Tokens as you can. Stacking them together before you begin repairing a Generator will make for some impressive repair times. Moreover, with the Specialist perk permanently saving the lowered requirement, it makes this build pretty Killer-proof, unlike some other repair builds.

Obviously, you should look to bring a Toolbox as your item of choice. The add-ons don’t matter as much, but anything that stacks repair speed is certainly worth a look. Besides that, increased number of charges is another good option. If you don’t mind spending a rare add-on, then Brand New Part would be the best one to bring since it also permanently lowers the repair requirement – but it’s one-use only.